Online records of National Archives of India

A search web portal of the department, “Abhilekh patal"[1]was launched by Dr.Mahesh Sharma, Hon'ble Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (I/c) and Civil Aviation on 11 March 2015 on the occasion of 125th Foundation Day Celebrations.This search portal, in which reference media of approximately. 25.23 lakh records has already been uploaded, was launched with the intention of making the rich archival treasure accessible to scholars and users. The Department has also initiated the process of Digital on Demand (DOD) with implementation of E-payment gateway, which will shortly become functional.

The Government of India had decided to declassify the files relating to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and make them accessible to public. This was announced by Hon’ble Prime Minister of India on 14 October 2015 when he met a delegation of members of Netaji family at his residence in New Delhi. The first lot of 33 files which were declassified were handed over by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to National Archives of India on 4 December 2015. Subsequently, declassified files relating to Netaji were transferred from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) 37 files, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and 25 files from the PMO. As a first step, digital copies of 100 files relating to Netaji were released in public domain, by Shri Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India on 23rd January 2016 to meet the long-standing public demand to access these files. These files also began to facilitate scholars to carry out further research on Netaji. The National Archives of India subsequently released digital copies of 75 declassified files relating to Netaji in the public domain in two batches on 29 March 2016 and 27 April 2016. The 4th batch of 25 files consists of 5 files of the PMO, 4 files of MHA and 16 files of MEA pertaining to the years 1968-2008 was launched on 27 May, 2016.